


Roman Candle

by simplyprologue



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, F/M, Grief, Post Episode: s03e05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All his defenses are gone; he needs her to keep him from bleeding out as they plan for what comes next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roman Candle

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** Takes place in between "Oh Shenandoah" and the finale, specifically the night before the finale. The scripture at the end is Romans 12:10, which was likely a part of Will and Mac's reading at their wedding. Warnings for abuse and death.

For decades his brittle iron bones have withstood, a bulwark to all that has fought its way to his core. He understands pain, it is instinct to him where happiness is not. Pain is a way of reaffirming the ironworks in his body, of rebuilding himself when he is raw and rusting. It is a shield, where happiness leaves him open to be brittle, to be broken.

He has nothing left but the cage of iron, unbending until it breaks. In the days following his release from prison, he lingers at MacKenzie’s side, following her every movement. All his defenses are gone; he needs her to keep him from bleeding out as they plan for what comes next, what comes now that Charlie is gone.

So he remains with her during the day, his fingers pinched into the loose back of her blouse, always a step behind.

She’s aware of it, or perhaps inviting of it.

Will goes back on the air immediately, which gives him the means to exhaust himself after fifty-three days in a cage with iron bars and a concrete floor. New means, after seven weeks of self-punishing pushups and tricep dips and all the exercises that used to work back in high school and college to push John out of his head. They’re in and out of meetings and off and on Manhattan and up and down floors and all the _space_ is overwhelming and _loud_ and when he looks into the camera that first night, the overhead studio lights give him a headache.

Mac’s thighs serve as his pillow that night, when he falls asleep hours before her as she continues pouring over contracts and wire reports and old segments they’ve done, filing their life into tidy folders to present to Pruitt should he care to threaten them again.

And he wants to help her, he does, but his thoughts are disorganized at worst, scripted and produced at best -- and that, if only, is because Mac is the one doing the producing. If he stops at all, then he feels too much, grief hobbling his knees as he watches the empty space where Charlie used to fit grow wider.

The only difference between the first day and the second is that the second is marked by the act of them all picking out their mourning best, laying out muted suits and dresses, dark ties and delicate jewelry and respectable shoes. Will lays on the bed as Mac frets over two pairs of heels, wondering aloud which pair won’t sink her heels into the grass before laying out his clothes for tomorrow too, like his inability to do so himself is normative and expected. But, he figures, blinking blearily as she picks out a tie with black and blue stripes and holds it under his chin, she _is_ the expert on funerals.

Charlie said so.

“Billy, go to sleep.” Her face is soft, her voice softer still, after a day spent locked in argument with Pruitt, Mac apparently the last one standing between him and any of them losing their employment.

Gently, she sits on the edge of the bed.

“It’s early,” he says, reaching up to touch her hair. That, instead of remarking that he should be fighting with her, for her, if only what was rattling inside his head made sense. “I miss you.”

“And you’re exhausted.” She catches his hand, kissing his fingertips one by one. “And tomorrow will be exhausting.”

Sleep doesn’t come, regardless. Not until after she pulls the hem of her nightgown up to the crests of her hips, straddling him. They share a kiss that’s almost more the intermingling of breath and bare contact of their lips than an actual kiss. The act itself is slow, almost comfortable, their pajamas moved enough out of the way to make due. They’re both too tired to talk, or keep eye contact, instead angling their faces together as MacKenzie languidly rolls her hips and wipes his mind blank. The feel of her warm skin under his splayed fingers (the curve of her back, her waist, the soft flesh of her breasts, the back of her thighs) calms him, and he traces the topography of her unforgotten body.

He finally drifts off in the after, his arms wrapped around her bare thighs and his cheek pressed against her stomach. On top of her, pinning her to the mattress, as if to assure his sleeping self that she too won’t disappear.

He loses her anyway.

The nightmares returned in prison, where only his mind could attempt to flee. It was too similar to his childhood, the clapboard farmhouse that was a cage and a crime scene, the domestic theater of a war he couldn’t escape, only attempt to build fortifications for. Bars so narrow and tall that not even his father’s fingers could fit through, keeping him out and all the light and fresh air too.

Dad went to prison four times during Will’s childhood (he learned the words “domestic A&B” at six, “felony assault” at nine, and “recidivism” at ten as a jury of his father’s peers handed down sentence after sentence and Will couldn’t help but feel that they were judging him too, his child’s body stained with his atheist father’s sins) and he wonders if it was like that for him too. There are things he’s never wanted to have in common with his father and explanations he’s feared and in the end it amounts to nothing -- the key will always remain out of reach.

And so he’s back in the cage, and he remembers the first time a police officer escorted his father home from Duffy’s in town, the words “public intoxication” and “released on his own recognizance” followed by “three hundred dollar fine and probation, in addition to the property damage” emptying out from his mouth. The drinking began again as soon as the tires of the police car were squelching on the gravel in the driveway, and ended with his mother’s cheekbone swollen and distended.

It’s not his mother, now.

Charlie, instead, face bruised and blood pooling where his temple meets the cheap rug on the floor. His father, standing over Charlie’s prone form, looks to him next. _Do you want to be next?_ The words are out of sync with his mouth, like a tape that needs tracking. Will feels himself squinting; he tries to take a step, but the floor slides sideways.

He falls.

 _Do you?_ His father stands over him. _I know what you did. Did you see what happened to him? That’s your fault. I think you need to answer to that._ And Will is angry, like he was towards the end -- not that it matters, here while he’s sleeping. Dad has _rules_ about how one is to be punished for their infractions, real and perceived. Rules for picking your switch, that if you wanted to be _a man_ you selected one thicker than your thumb, and he’d stand in the doorway and watch them as you stripped the branches of foliage before handing it over to him for inspection.

And then you’d untuck your shirt from your pants and strip it off, brace yourself against the structure of his choosing, and bare your back.

 _Proverbs, right?_ Dad would say to Mom, and she would nod meekly, her fingers curled into her skirt. _You’re a Proverbs 22 woman. You want a Proverbs 23 son._

When he was fourteen, Will was told to pick his switch, and came back with a broom handle.

 _Do your best,_ he’d said. John had thrown the broom handle aside, picked up a piece of spare PVC pipe, and kicked his feet out from under him.

His lips parting over a seething grin, he says again, _Do your best._

The dream jerks forward, the picture and sound distorted again, and its MacKenzie on the floor receiving his beating.

“It’s okay, Will--”

He’s trapped in the cage, trying to pry through the bars he’d built for himself to get to Mac. _Not her. Not her. Do whatever you want to me, but just -- don’t hurt her._ But the bars are too narrow, unyielding. His grief shatters him outwards, fleck and flints of dark metal, colored by time and melting backwards from iron to liquid to flame. Like a firework -- pressure, and heat, and noise.

Like a ragdoll with linen limbs, MacKenzie does not fight back. Her lips move in a bloodied face, “It’s okay, you’re safe, honey, you’re safe.”

He can’t help her.

“Billy, wake up. Wake up--”

The dream splinters into blood-soaked red, white filling up the fragments and hollows and when he opens his eyes he sees black, his face buried in Mac’s dark blue nightgown. Even though he's gasping, the light cotton suffocating him, he does not bare his face.

Her voice is trying hard to not be frantic. “Honey, are you awake? Let me know if you--”

His nerves alight, he shakes, and squeezes where his arms are still wrapped around her thighs.

Words won’t come.

“You’re alright,” she murmurs like a psalm (Ephesians, I Corinthians, Romans -- _be devoted to one another in love; honor one another above yourselves_ ) and combs her fingers through his hair. “You’re alright. You’re home now, I’m here.”

His breathing is conspicuous, and uneven.

With a mighty tremble, the bars of the cage turn to ash and crumble.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
